4-3-3

[Slaphead]

I must be ridiculous then, I even thought Delph was quite poor so I must be mental.

[The Situation]

I must be ridiculous then, I even thought Delph was quite poor so I must be mental.

Well yes, Delph was giving the ball away quite a bit - that'll I will agree with you!

[Dave]

Where did I complain? I just gave my opinion that we were lucky and that I thought it was a pen and the goal should have stood.

I think over the season we're down on lucky decisions rather than up.

We've probably played better and lost, but nobody ever goes to Arsenal, plays badly and wins.

[jembob]

We looked really good for the first 20 minutes. You are always going to concede a lot of possession to Arse at the Emirates but I thought that we did a really good job of handling them. As soon as I saw the team for that match I thought we had a chance - I like it as a formation and it seems to me that the players have a better understanding of what they should be doing.

[Summers]

A good performance can be a defensive performance too. We took our chances (which as a club is something we've failed to do for a long time...) and then we defended our hearts out and held onto a great win. We didn't dominate them or out play them for 90 minutes, but we put in a great performance and deserved the win.

[paul_e]

I personally think we bossed the first half and then, whilst they had the better of the 2nd half we had 2-3 very good chances before they got their goal, Bent missed a one-on-one remember and there was one great chance for downing to put a ball across the box but he tried to use his left rather than his right.

As for Delph, he made mistakes you'd expect from someone who's played so little football in 2 seasons.  However he also played 5-6 stunning passes to really open the game up and his movement off the ball was better than any midfielder at the club in long while.

[darren woolley]

I thought we played well even if they came at us most of the second half I would still stick with 433 for sundays game it was our one of our better games this season.

[lukey27]

For me, it's not so much the formation but the personnel we decide to play within that formation. For some bizarre reason we persisted for too many weeks with 4-3-3, whilst playing three very attacking players playing in and around Bent. For me that formation worked much better at Arsenal because we had three out and out central midfielders dovetailing and we seemingly had a much better balance.

Delph will excel next year as part of a three man midfield, he's certainly got bags of ability. Too often in his short Villa career he's been hung out to dry in a 4-4-2 next to Petrov.